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Sunday, December 30, 2012

The Girl from Ipanema: 50 Years Old in 2013

The song "Garota de Ipanema" had its 50th anniversary in 2012, while the English-language version, "The Girl From Ipanema," celebrates that landmark in 2013.

Tall and tan and young and
lovely, "The Girl From Ipanema" is also a survivor. The iconic tune
has been recorded by a multitude of jazz greats and pop legends, as well as crooners
of lesser talent, appeared on the soundtracks of remarkably diverse movies, ridden
elevators from Shanghai to Chicago as a Muzak standard, and been subjected to innumerable
lounge renditions. Through it all, it has endured as a global favorite and is the
second most recorded song in the world according to Performing Songwriter magazine, trailing only "Yesterday"
by the Beatles. The song's original version, "Garota de Ipanema,"
with music by Antonio Carlos ("Tom") Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by
Vinícius de Moraes, was first performed in 1962 and celebrated its fiftieth
anniversary in 2012. Meanwhile, Stan Getz and João Gilberto's debut recording
of "The Girl From Ipanema," which added English lyrics, turns fifty
in 2013.

Hêlo Pinto, the OG(Original Girl) from Ipanema

"Garota
de Ipanema" made its debut in August, 1962 at a club in Copacabana called
Au Bon Gourmet, during a show that ran for several weeks and featured the first
and only joint performances of bossa nova's three most important figures—Jobim,
the poet-lyricist-singer de Moraes and guitarist-singer João Gilberto (who
invented the bossa nova beat on the guitar and is the genre's greatest
interpreter). They were backed on stage by Otávio Bailly on bass, Milton Banana
on drums, and the Os Cariocas vocal group. Bossa nova was four years old in
Brazil and had run a little off track with its own success; the
show's participants and its producer Aloysio de Oliveira hoped to remind
audiences about the style's fundamental strengths with the all-star event. The concerts
garnered rave reviews and nightly packed the room, which could just barely squeeze
in three hundred patrons. "Garota de Ipanema" was received with cries
of "how beautiful!" The Au Bon Gourmet sessions were also a launching
pad for several other tunes that are now classics: Jobim and de Moraes debuted
"Só Danço Samba"; Jobim launched "Samba do Avião"; and
Vinícius introduced "Samba da Benção" and "O Astronauta,"
which he had written with Baden Powell.

Vinícius, Tom, João andOs Cariocas at Au Bon Gourmet

"Garota
de Ipanema" made its Brazilian recording debut in January of 1963, with
separate releases by vocalist Pery Ribeiro and the instrumental group Tamba
Trio. Its monster global success was yet to come, however.

The inspiration for the song
was a beautiful, tanned teenaged girl named Heloisa ("Helô") Eneida Menezes
Paes Pinto who lived on Rua Montenegro in Ipanema and used to “sway so gently”
past the Veloso bar on her street as she made her way to the beach or around
town. Jobim and de Moraes were regulars at Veloso, where they gathered to chat
and down copious quantities of beers and scotch. They didn't fail to notice the
young woman's charms as she passed by, often whistling in appreciation and
calling out to her, as did other male patrons, all to no avail.

Hêlo at the beach in Rio

They turned their
appreciation of the young woman into a song, but didn't compose the tune on
napkins at Veloso, contrary to many reports. Rather, Vinícius penned the lyrics
in Petropolis, in the mountains north of Rio. Jobim composed the music on the
piano in his Ipanema apartment on Rua Barão da Torre. The song had a working
title of "Menina Que Passa" (Girl Who Passes By), was originally
intended for a musical comedy called Dirigível
(Blimp), and initially had a different opening verse.

The
next month, bossa nova really took off overseas, thanks to jazz saxophonist Stan
Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd's Jazz Samba album. It had been released in April 1962 and the album and its instrumental
hit single "Desafinado" (by Jobim and Newton Mendonça) entered the Billboard pop charts in September. Jazz Samba ultimately hit no. 1 and
stayed on the charts for seventy weeks. Jazz and pop musicians released a flood
of bossa-themed albums. Getz quickly followed up with Big Band Bossa Nova and Jazz
Samba Encore, making the pop charts with both.

Jobim, Getz and Gilbertoat the recording session

By
March of 1963, the bossa nova craze was starting to lose steam in the U.S. but many
good recordings with the style were still being made. Getz had long wanted to play
with Gilberto and Jobim and invited them to New York to record an album. Getz/Gilberto had the small stellar
lineup of Getz (saxophone), Gilberto (guitar and vocals), Jobim (piano), Milton
Banana (drums), and Tommy Williams (bass). It was a dream lineup and a chance
for Getz to go straight to the source of bossa nova and play with its two
greatest musical figures: João and Tom. Yet it wasn't all smooth sailing. Getz
still wasn't getting bossa nova quite right and Gilberto the perfectionist was
impatient with him, saying things in Portuguese to Jobim like, "Tom, tell
the gringo he's a moron," according to Brazilian journalist Ruy Castro. But
Getz biographer Donald L. Maggin claims that Stan and João shared a great
rapport, and that a major problem arose the first day when the naturally shy
and reclusive Gilberto refused to leave his hotel room to go to the recording
session. It reportedly took hours of pleading by Getz's wife Monica to get him
to the studio. In any event, it all came together, especially after Getz downed
a few shots of whiskey, and the memorable LP was cut on March 18 and 19, 1963.

Getz, Milton Banana, Jobim,Creed Taylor, João and Astrud

Two
of the album's tunes, "Corcovado" and "The Girl From
Ipanema," featured the light, gentle vocals of João’s wife, Astrud
Gilberto, who had practiced singing with João and performed at informal bossa
gatherings but was not yet a professional. Getz claimed it was his idea to
include her on the album and that Tom and João opposed it; Ruy Castro wrote
that it was Astrud's idea; Tom said that it was his and João's inspiration;
and, Astrud herself was quoted as saying that it was all her husband's idea. In
any event, it worked far better than anybody could have hoped for. Some
Brazilian musicians still cringe at her somewhat amateurish performance on
"The Girl From Ipanema," but it's hard now to imagine the song having
become such a success without her cool, slightly awkward, innocent yet sexy
vocals. Astrud sang about the girl from Ipanema and for many listeners was the girl in the song.

Norman
Gimbel wrote the English lyrics for "The Girl From Ipanema," which
were inspired by the original Portuguese words by Vinícius but were not a
translation. He also cut out two syllables (and two repetitive notes) from the
opening phrase, going from "Olha que coisa" (five syllables) to
"Tall and tan" (three syllables), as noted by Jobim biographer Sérgio
Cabral, who claimed Tom wasn't bothered by it. Gimbel himself noted, in an
email sent to me, that "I simplified [the music] by taking out some notes
from the original to give it 'edge.' "

Lyricist Norman Gimbel

Gene Lees, the English-language lyricist for several famous Jobim songs and a noted
jazz essayist, wasn't happy with the adjustments. In one of his books he wrote,
"The opening line contains five notes; Gimbel reduced this to three…which
completely destroys the swing."

However, Gimbel felt the change was part of what made the song a huge worldwide success, along with the English lyrics, which "told a universal
story in a fun international (American) way," said Gimbel. In both
versions, the observer admires the beauty of the pretty girl walking by and is
sad that she isn't his. In the Portuguese lyrics, he doesn't think about doing
anything about it. But in the American version, the observer wishes he could
talk to her.

But I watch her so sadly How can I tell her I love her Yes I would give my heart gladly But each day, when she walks to the sea She looks straight ahead not at me

Vinicius's lyrics are more of a poetic
lament, a meditation on youthful beauty. Gimbel tells a tale of a one-sided, frustrated romance and his words are more about the girl herself.

Gimbel mentions the words "the girl from Ipanema" during the song, while the
Brazilian lyrics mention that she has a "golden body from the Ipanema sun"
but don't ever call her the "girl from Ipanema." Her appearance is less
abstract and more tangible in the English version. Instead of "look, what
a beautiful thing, so graceful" (Vinícius) we have "tall and tan and
young and lovely" (Gimbel), which creates a more striking impression.

Gimbel managed to both evoke the celebratory/melancholy
mood of the original song and successfully imprint a character in the public
imagination. The original lyrics are more subtle and poetic, but the direct English
words were probably essential to the song's enormous global success.

Tall and tan and young and lovely

The girl from Ipanema goes walking

When she walks she’s like a samba

That swings so cool and sways so gently

João and Astrud's vocals were both included in "The Girl From Ipanema"
track on Getz/Gilberto. João sings
the Portuguese lyrics, Astrud sings the English lyrics, Getz delivers a sublime
sax solo, Jobim follows with a short piano solo, and then Astrud's voice and
Getz's sax close it together. It is the greatest performance of the song, but
when it came time to release the single, producer Creed Taylor cut out João's
vocals entirely, leaving only the English lyrics and reducing the song's length
to just over three minutes.

Astrud and Getz perform the abridgedversion of "The Girl From Ipanema"

Taylor
kept the album on the shelf for a year, not wanting to compete with Jazz Samba, which was still riding high
on the charts. As a result, the song—with the title "The Girl From Ipanema" but in an instrumental
form—made its U.S. debut in 1963 on Jobim's album The Composer of "Desafinado" Plays, which had been
recorded two months after Getz/Gilberto
but released immediately.

Getz/Gilberto (Verve, in 1964)

Verve
released Getz/Gilberto only in March
1964 and "The Girl From Ipanema" single in April of that year. Both
hit the pop charts in June. “The
Girl From Ipanema” bridged the language gap with the U.S. audience and the
breezy song won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1964 (awarded to
Stan and Astrud) and went to number 5 on the Billboard singles chart. With one suave stroke, it altered Brazil's
international image. One might have previously pictured Carmen Miranda, coffee
and the Amazon when thinking of Brazil, or perhaps even Brasília and modernist
architect Oscar Niemeyer. Now, "The Girl From Ipanema" was a new
symbol of the country, with its casual sophistication, its paean to unattainable
young beauty, and the implicit evocation of beachside Rio's easygoing charm in
the early '60s. Astrud's participation in the song made her an instant star and
provided her with an international singing career, although she didn't earn a
penny from the hit single or the album.

Astrud Gilberto with Stan Getz

Most
importantly, "The Girl From Ipanema" opened the minds of listeners
across the world to the richness of Brazilian music. Its smooth syncopation and
graceful lyricism made it into a standard. Unfortunately, in the 1960s and '70s
it was so overplayed that in the United States “The Girl From Ipanema” began to
epitomize pop corniness. In 1980, it was heard as elevator music in the comedy
"The Blues Brothers." Happily, time has dissipated the excesses of
commercialization and the song’s definitive version (the unabridged track from Getz/Gilberto) is again a delight to
hear: cool, seductive, and wistful.

The album Getz/Gilberto garnered three other
Grammys (Best Album, Best Instrumental Jazz Performance (Small Group), and Best
Engineered Recording (Non-Classical) as well and went to number 2 on the pop
charts. It failed to reach number 1 only because the Beatles were making pop
music history that year. Getz/Gilberto
spent an extraordinary ninety-six weeks on the charts, fifty of them in the Top
40. It has never gone out of print and deserves its success: the album is a
great marriage of Getz's sensuous, lyrical saxophone with João and Tom's
sublime bossa nova.

The Garota de Ipanema bar/restaurant (formerly Veloso)

Helô
became nationally famous in 1965 once Jobim and Vinícius revealed her as the
inspiration for the song. Jobim was smitten by the young woman and proposed
marriage to her several times, all in vain. She married her boyfriend, an
engineer, became Helô Pinheiro, and had four children. She became a friend to
the famous songwriters, although remained an unattainable muse for them. Today
the Veloso bar is named Garota de Ipanema, after the song. The street it faces,
Rua Montenegro, is now called Rua Vinícius de Moraes.

3 comments:

Hello, I'm doing some research on Brazilian culture for a project I am currently working on and I would appreciate it if you could help answer a few questions. In Brazil, I know that there are many different types of music styles. I was wondering what the most important cultural aspect of the music? Also, I was wondering if you would happen to know where the style of dancing involved with the music came from and why it is important in Brazilian music? Thank you for any information you can give.

About Me

I'm the author of "The Brazilian Music Book," a collection of interviews with iconic Brazilian musicians, and co-author of "The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil" (Temple University Press). I have contributed blogs and articles about music, culture, and the environment to The Huffington Post, Billboard and many other publications. I have also worked on Portuguese/English translations for academics, government agencies and major corporations. I can be reached at the email here and at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismcgowan.